by A H Almaas
In the earliest stage of the journey—when we are learning to become more present to where we are—our experience and our inquiry operate within the normal range of sensations, feelings, emotions, thoughts, images, and reactions. These are the usual elements of experience for the ordinary self. Although we keep practicing being present, and we keep practicing inquiry, being present at this stage means that we are in one personality state or another—perhaps experiencing a deficiency or an identification or a particular pattern of behavior or some kind of emotional or mental or physical state. We have not yet reached the discovery of essential presence, so our journey is toward presence.
The next stage begins once we have discovered and recognized presence as an expression of our True Nature with its pure sense of here-ness, its authenticity, its is-ness, its immaculateness. Here our journey continues with an awareness of presence. We still exist as we have known ourselves—as an ego-self—but we now have a more or less continuous experience of presence, arising as the various qualities and dimensions of our True Nature.
In the third stage, we are journeying in presence, not just with presence. Now presence has moved to center stage, and it is the field within which all of our experience arises. This is what we call nonduality, and our practice becomes nondual practice. Presence here is the ground, the nature, of everything in its essence and its manifestation.
Let’s take a look at how the nature of the primary and secondary components of our experience differ according to what stage of the journey we are in. In the first stage, the primary component and the secondary component tend to be similar. The primary component might be an emotion, such as fear or terror or happiness, or it could be a sense of deficiency or a particular pattern or self-image. The secondary components might include fear or rejection of the sense of deficiency, judgment or shame about a particular self-image, or commentaries and plans about whatever else might be arising.
We learn through the process of inquiry how to discern the two types of components and distinguish them from one another. First, we need to recognize a reaction as a secondary component and not as the primary event. The recognition of any secondary component makes clear what the primary component is. That’s why we always want to include both in our inquiry. Because if we don’t see our reactions, we’ll never know what the primary component is.
As soon as we identify the primary component and can be fully present with it—recognize it completely, feel it fully, intimately hold it—what is arising begins to unfold and change. We might find out that it has become a secondary component to something more primary. Let’s say our primary component is terror. When we feel the terror fully, we might recognize that underneath it is a sense of disintegration. The experience of disintegration then becomes the primary component and the terror becomes a secondary reaction. And the process keeps going, as other, deeper, primary components emerge.
In the second stage of the journey, the primary component is usually essential presence itself. When we inquire into where we are, we are asking, “What is the particular quality of presence arising in this moment? Is it strength? Is it power? Is it compassion? Is it boundless awareness?” The secondary component, then, will be the ego structures and patterns and the self-images and reactions that arise in relation to that particular quality of presence.
In this stage, unfolding is already happening. The center of our experience is presence, and the unfolding is the flow of the presence arising as one quality after another. As that happens, the secondary components arise—the issues, the ego structures, images, or patterns that are in reaction. We need to recognize these so we don’t become disconnected from the primary component, which is the presence itself. Often our experience will move farther from or closer to the center of presence as we confront what is arising in us. But the sense of presence always provides the thread for knowing where we are. When we’re experiencing the presence, being where we are means not just knowing or experiencing it, but being it. Thus with presence, it becomes very easy to know what it means to be where we are.
When we get to the third stage, the primary component is the presence, and the secondary components are the particular manifestations that arise within that presence. Everything other than pure presence itself is a secondary component. Secondary components can include our feelings, our body, the environment with its shapes and forms, various qualities of light, or inner forms such as ideas, visions, or essential aspects. (These aspects are the various facets of our True Nature—such as clarity, strength, will, or compassion—which arise as discriminated qualities in response to the needs of our situation.) All the shapes and forms—the manifestations—become the secondary components, and they’re always changing. The presence is always the ground. Being ourselves means being the presence, but the presence here is inseparable from all that is arising within it. That is because everything that arises in our experience is a form or expression that this presence takes.
So let’s summarize and review the main distinctions we have identified thus far in this chapter.
The two components of experience are:
1. The primary component: the central event that is arising in our personal experience
2. The secondary component: our reactions and responses to the central event
The three stages of the journey that determine the nature and unfolding of the primary and secondary components are:
1. The practice of awareness and inquiry deepening toward the discovery of presence
2. The practice of awareness and inquiry constantly revealing presence at the heart of experience
3. Being with inquiry, awareness, and experience as the spontaneous unfolding of presence
As you can surmise from all that has been said, the practice of being where we are is a practice that encompasses all three stages of our journey—the entire inner path we are traveling. It combines the practices of presence, awareness, and inquiry. Thus it encompasses our regular activities in daily life as well as our sitting meditations, and it includes how we practice being ourselves in every situation. All our life experiences are variations of the practice of being where we are with awareness, with presence, and with understanding.
THE OBSTACLE OF AGGRESSION
All obstacles to being ourselves can be divided into three categories: ignorance, desire, and aggression. These major categories are known in many spiritual traditions. They are called the three primary poisons or the three primary roots. Many obstacles can be placed in more than one category. Most obstacles, including those we have explored so far—meddling, resistance, and defense—are a combination of all three. In reality, all three categories are facets of the same thing: they are the three supports of the ego-self, which you can also call the ego life or ego experience.
We have recognized the need for many essential aspects, many capacities, that enable us to see and recognize where we are. In earlier chapters, we have discussed awareness, allowing, vulnerability, steadfastness, the capacity to cease interfering, and others. Whenever we are faced with an obstacle, one or more of these qualities of presence can be of help to us. I want to introduce now two other necessary qualities that complement each other: the aspects of strength and compassion. These two can help us when we are faced with obstacles in the category that the majority of people find the most painful to deal with: aggression.
As we have seen, the main reason we engage in meddling, resistance, and defense is that we’re afraid that if we’re vulnerable, if we’re open, if we allow ourselves to just simply be where we are, we will not be safe. Many people these days blame their insecurity on terrorism in the world. But the actual lack of safety is more a result of the terrorism that is inside our minds—the internal saboteurs. Our primary fear is that if we are open and let ourselves be where we are, we’re going to be belittled. We’re going to be rejected. We’re going to be humiliated. We’re going to be attacked. We’re going to be judged. We’re going to be criticized. We’re going to be shamed. We
’re going to be made to feel guilty.
We’re afraid that other people will do these things to us and sometimes that actually happens. But more often, we do these things to ourselves. Have you ever said to yourself, “If I really let myself be vulnerable, I feel so delicate, sweet, and innocent. If people notice that, they will judge me as good for nothing”? Or maybe you’ve thought, “If I feel that sweet innocence, I’m going to get embarrassed. I’m going to be humiliated. It means I’m not strong. Somebody is going to reject me or shame me.” These worries are usually a projection onto other people of our own inner terrorist that’s scaring us.
All of these projections are examples of the obstacle of aggression. We normally think that aggression is about people killing or hurting other people. But for people who are on the inner journey, that’s only a very small part of it. The primary form of aggression for those on the path is their aggression toward themselves. We don’t allow ourselves to be open and vulnerable, to be where we are, because whatever we find as primary in that experience of vulnerability is often connected to a feeling of deficiency, and we might attack the hell out of ourselves for it: “You’re no good. You’re not enough. You’ll never amount to anything.”
Right away, we become afraid that somebody is going to think those things about us. But why do you always believe that no matter what, somebody’s going to think you’re not good enough? Why can’t you imagine that they might think something else? Is it likely that everyone on Earth is thinking the same thought—that you’re not good enough? Why doesn’t it occur to you that some of them will just think you’re weird? And that others will think you’re naive? No, you believe they will all think you’re not good enough.
Obviously, the common factor among all these people is that you are projecting onto them. This is one way that we avoid facing the primary component that is arising in our own experience. We rationalize, defend ourselves, justify ourselves. But to whom are we justifying ourselves? Why do we need to blame anybody? We simply are not comfortable about where we are, but we don’t want to feel that, so we make others responsible for our discomfort by projecting onto them our own reaction. Our focus is outward on them instead of inward on what’s true about ourselves.
What we’re seeing here is the activity of what we call the superego. The superego is a specialized part of our ego structure that has the job of making sure we live up to the standards we learned as children to survive in our families and communities. It does this by various means, including judging, criticizing, advising, warning, encouraging, threatening, and punishing ourselves in reaction to our thoughts, feelings, and actions. The superego is one way that aggression toward ourselves manifests, and it becomes a big obstacle to finding where we are and just being there. It is a major barrier to being ourselves, to being real.
Being real might mean experiencing yourself as immense and powerful, but your superego might think that’s unacceptable. It warns you, “You’re going to be too much for people. They won’t want to be with you. They will abandon you or judge you as too loud or too aggressive.”
So we have all these judgments, and we feel humiliated, ashamed, embarrassed, guilty, worthless, deficient. But all of these feelings stem from our own aggression toward ourselves. So when you hear someone say, “Let yourself be where you are,” you probably think, “Why would I want to be where I am? I don’t want to be anywhere in particular. If I’m somewhere specific, it’s usually trouble. Somebody’s going to get me.” But the who that’s going to get you is usually part of your own mind.
So when it comes to finding and being where we are, we need to recognize the secondary reactions that come from the superego—reactions of attack, rejection, humiliation, shame, guilt, belittling, devaluing, comparing, and so on. The superego has many ways to keep us in place, to keep us from where we really are, to keep us this side of the event horizon where we cannot see what is happening in the center of our experience.
WORKING WITH THE SUPEREGO
Because the attacks of the superego are so debilitating, we need to know how to effectively counter them. There are three primary ways to successfully deal with the superego, and they are linked with the three stages of the journey that we discussed earlier.
Stage One: Using the Strength of Aggression
The first way works well during stage one of the journey when our awareness is not strong, our presence is not developed, and our inquiry is not yet skillful. That’s when we need to directly defend ourselves, to own up to our aggression and to use its strength and energy to throw the superego out, to create space to be where we are. In this way, we defend ourselves consciously—by using our strength to create space instead of erecting walls, defenses, and resistance to protect us from dangers of the superego.
In the early years of our practice of being where we are, we need to constantly recognize the superego and its ploys and learn how to defend against them. Basically, we need to tell the superego where to go: “Who cares what you think? Go to hell.” Okay, so you feel deficient, and the superego keeps insisting that you’ll never amount to anything. You can tell it, “Good—if I’m never going to amount to anything, why are you bothering me? Go find somebody else.”
This is a way of disengaging, but with strength, with energy, with awareness. The superego wants to fence you in, and you need to expand outward. This kind of defense not only disrupts the superego and silences it, but it also expands our energy. It allows space for us to recognize where we are and to be there without interference.
Stage Two: Using Awareness and Understanding
The second stage of working with the superego begins after we have learned to defend against it with strength, boldness, and aggressiveness. These are energies that we have taken back and owned and therefore can use. Our awareness is now strong and clear, and our inquiry skills are sufficiently developed to prevent a superego attack from confusing us or putting us into a tailspin. At this point, using aggression to defend ourselves is less important; simply recognizing and understanding an attack can counter it. We can often dissolve an attack simply by knowing that the superego is attacking us and understanding why.
During the first stage, understanding alone usually will not work very well, as the long history of psychoanalysis has shown. Psychoanalysts have not found a way to successfully deal with the superegos of many of their patients. After fifteen to twenty years of analysis, people still attack themselves and feel guilty. This is because simply understanding the origins of their superego dynamics—you’re feeling this way because of your father . . . it’s because your mother did such and such—is rarely sufficient to stop an attack.
At the beginning stages of working with the superego, you don’t have enough awareness and presence to be able to explore and understand while under attack. You need to have some space in your experience, which means space from the superego. That’s why it’s important to learn how to defend yourself with strength. Some people don’t want to do that, however, because they’re scared of their own aggression, or they are afraid to separate from the attacking inner figures of their parents.
But in the second stage, when we’re more established in our presence and our awareness, it is easier to deal with the attacks. By then, they are not as loud or as powerful and are more easily recognized. Recognizing and understanding the superego and its functioning dissolves its attacks. Using awareness and understanding to work with the superego becomes the focus in the second stage.
Stage Three: Using Recognition
Eventually, we come to the third stage of the inner journey, the condition of nondual presence with its manifestations. When the superego arises during this stage, merely recognizing that an attack has been made usually will dissolve it. We don’t need to do much beyond that—any work to try to understand why and how the attack occurred is not necessary.
So, to summarize:
In the first stage of the journey, we need to call on our aggression in the form of strength to separate from
and defend against the manipulation of our experience by the superego.
In the second stage of the journey, recognizing a superego attack and understanding how it works is usually sufficient to dissolve the attack.
In the third stage of the journey, just recognizing that an attack is in progress is sufficient to stop it.
As we deal with the superego, we learn that the intention of this major coercive agent within us is to try to direct our experience. Basically, the superego is trying to make you feel one thing and not another: “This is acceptable; that is not acceptable. This is okay; that is not okay.” But the superego can manifest not only in the form of attacks, but also as positive feedback: a pat on the back, pride in your accomplishments, self-congratulation, or a little bit of ego inflation. What’s important to remember is that all inputs by the superego are secondary components—reactions within the event horizon. The main event is what’s really happening. If I’m authentically in a condition of realization, why do I need to pat myself on the back? Who’s doing that? If I’m feeling proud, who’s proud? If I’m getting inflated, what does that mean? What it really means is that I’m going beyond the center and traveling again to the periphery.
So we need to defend ourselves even against so-called positive internal commentary. When the superego tells us that we did a great job, we can say, “Who asked you?” In time, we won’t care what it’s saying. And eventually, if we are able to deal with the superego in that way, we won’t care whether other people approve of us or disapprove of us either. Resistance is futile, but approval and disapproval become irrelevant. They are irrelevant because you are going to be absorbed into the black hole anyway. That’s where you can be at peace. This side of the event horizon is where the noise is.